![\"Grocery](\"https:\/\/missiontimescourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/web-Grocery-1.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cIt\u2019ll be good to be able to walk to the store when you need to,\u201d said resident Bobbie Perez. \u201cAfter Albertson\u2019s closed, the closest market was the Vons down on Mission Gorge, and that place is a mess to get into and out of. I\u2019m not that interested in the Dollar Tree part of the deal, but I\u2019ll take a look and see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lane Occthielo says he doesn\u2019t know much about Grocery Outlet, but he\u2019s willing to walk over and give it a try.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand they\u2019re a little different \u2014 they may not always have the name brands that other stores do, but they\u2019re supposed to be cheaper,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t much care about the Dollar Tree concept, but whatever works for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
People on the whole seem happy to have any kind of store back there. Before the Albertson\u2019s was shut down in February of 2015, there had been a grocery store there for 60 years.<\/p>\n
It all started with a Food Basket, which became a Lucky, then finally an Albertson\u2019s (although not part of the overall Albertson\u2019s company. It was a separate, independent operation that shared the name).<\/p>\n
The Allied Gardens Kiwanis Club tried to step into the breach, as it were, by lining a farmers market one day a week in the parking lot, but that didn\u2019t last long.<\/p>\n
Property manager Linda Lasher says the owners of the shopping center believe the new grocery store will bring people once again into the center and also entice businesses into the last empty spaces there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe really only have one closed business in the center, now that Grocery Outlet and Dollar Tree are locked in,\u201d she said. \u201cThere are people looking at that business, a closed bank building, seeing what might be done with it. There is another space, but that was being loaned free to a church group to run a discount type store. They\u2019re moving out as we speak, and we already have a new tenant signed up for that space.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, when the Grocery Outlet opens, likely in late summer or early fall, what will we see?<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see a store that looks like what we used to see, but operates very differently.<\/p>\n
You will often see brands you don\u2019t recognize on the shelves, but you will also see many brands you\u2019ve known all your lives.<\/p>\n
The complaint about \u201cno name brands\u201d is pretty much a fallacy, according to Marc Drasin, real estate vice president of Grocery Outlet, Inc.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbout 60 percent of what we sell is opportunistically purchased national brands. We do not have a private label,\u201d he said. \u201cThis means that the manufacturer could have made too much, and we\u2019ve bought the excess inventory, it could be a test item, it might have been part of a cancelled order from another chain. It could be any number of reasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bottom line is that prices of such items will be in the range of 50 percent less than you\u2019d pay down the hill at Vons.\u201d<\/p>\n
One Grocery Outlet manager I know explained it this way.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou come and buy a bottle of Hunt\u2019s catsup (or ketchup, depending on your usage). A month later, you come and have to buy a bottle of Heinz catsup. It\u2019s still good, just not the one you\u2019re used to buying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Drasin puts this face on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a treasure experience for our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
That might be stretching the window out of shape just a bit, but the experience does come with lower prices, if what you want is in stock.<\/p>\n
The bottom line is that Allied Gardens is getting a grocery store back.<\/p>\n
A lot of folks are very happy about that.<\/p>\n